Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/33

 God to be different from and higher than all other men, and that from the first to last of time.

How they hate that republican Christianity which declares that “God hath made of one blood all nations of men,” and that Gospel equality which announces that saints “are one in Christ Jesus,” and that, having “all one Father,” “all we are brethren” in a blessed communion, where no lofty pretensions or imprescriptable rights are allowed to any, but he that would be greatest must be the servant of all.

I have seen a person of this class, on approaching a low-caste man, wave his right hand superciliously thirty yards before they could meet, and so send him off to the other side of the road. The poor despised man meekly bowed and obeyed the haughty intimation. No sacerdotal tyranny has ever been so relentlessly and scornfully enforced as that of the Brahminical rule, and none has been such an unmitigated curse to the nation where it was exercised.

Caste is an institution peculiarly Brahminical. The Sanscrit word is varna, which denotes color—probably the ancient distinction between the Hindoo invaders and the aborigines. Caste, from the Portuguese casta a breed, exactly expresses the Brahminical idea. Their account of its origin, abridged from the Institutes of Menu, the oldest system of law extant save the Pentateuch, is as follows:

“In order to preserve the universe, Brahma caused the Brahmin to proceed from his mouth, the Kshatriya to proceed from his arm, the Vaisya to proceed from his thigh, and the Sudra to proceed from his foot. And Brahma directed that the duties of the Brahmins should be reading and teaching the Veda; sacrificing, and assisting others to sacrifice; giving alms if they be rich, and receiving alms if they be poor. And Brahma directed that the duties of the Kshatriyas should be to defend the people, to give alms, to sacrifice, to read the Veda, and to keep their passions under control. And he directed that the duties of the Vaisyas should be to keep herds of cattle, to give alms, to read the Shasters, to carry on